Mobile devices have become ubiquitous in everyday life. As mobile capabilities permeate many traditional devices, new devices having cellular connectivity are improving their dimensional utility becoming more convenient for many users. Mobile devices including smart phones, cellular phones, geo-positional systems (GPS), tablets and notebooks are some examples of mobile devices that are used by various users, for business or personal use. With the advancement in the technological capabilities and complexities of mobile devices, the need to provide physical protection to one's mobile device, protecting it from impact, damage, environmental and/or other physical adversity, is also increasing. Additionally, with the proliferation of mobile devices, users may also seek to distinguish their mobile device from another's by utilizing a casing or protection system which provides for unique labeling, colors, shapes or other visual identifiers.
While various protective cases have been designed for some mobile phones, many of the case designs are difficult to use, lack convenience in utility and may have restrictions for users who have dexterity limitations or other physical limitations. Other case designs are not physically protective, such as those involving peels and flexible covers for the mobile phones. Still other case designs are often overly rigid for a normal user when it becomes challenging and difficult to remove a phone from a protective case.
Some objectives of a convenient and purposeful casing system for a mobile device are preferably that it should: a) provide convenience and ease in use; b) be convenient and reasonably straight-forward to situate the cell phone into; c) provide a secure and reliable fit to a secured cell phone; d) be convenient and reasonably straightforward to remove the cell phone readily without risk of damage to a user or the physical cell phone; and e) be provide reasonable protection to the cell phone.
Based on these objectives, most of the casing systems in the market today fall short of the suite of requirements. For instance, many existing cases provide a molded shell of which the cell phone is to be torque and/or twisted into; these movements and requirements often cause a user to difficulty, especially one with limited or affected hand flexibility and dexterity. Similarly, where a user has mis-fitted his cell phone into the case (i.e., where the cell phone has been inserted upside down such that the camera is not aligned with the camera hole in the case, for instance), a user is required to unseat his cell phone and re-situate it into the case the right way; during this process, a user may again be challenged, be possibly injured or inconvenienced, or damage the cell phone or the case in repositioning it. In other situations, where a user has a poorly crafted case or has frequently removed and replaced the cell phone into a case, often the cell phone's seating in the case is no longer secure and the cell phone may inadvertently be released from the case unexpectedly. The security of the seating of the cell phone is an integrity aspect which a user is dependent upon.
Further, the combined objectives of providing for a secure fit and being protective, also require that a case be able to withstand a reasonable drop height such that common impacts do not damage the cell phone or the case. These combined objectives are often in conflict with other combined objectives which provided for a good user experience, including convenience. For instance, in today's market, users often find that their experience provides for generally one or no more than two of the objectives above; user experiences are more likely to indicate that it is difficult to find a case which provides for being reasonably simple to put on, providing for an initially and repeatably secure fit, and providing for an simple removal technique. Typically, in the present market, if one casing system is very easy to put on and provides for a secure fit, it usually is very difficult to take off. Similarly, where a case is very easy to put on and easy to take off, it usually does not provide for a secure fit.
FIG. 1 shows an example of an existing case 10 for a mobile device. The existing case 10 depicts a case having two pieces with a top portion 11 for the upper end of a phone and a bottom portion 12 for the primary part of the phone. In operation, the top section 11 is seated against the bottom section 12, and slides onto the bottom section 12 through the open side end. A cell phone (not shown) may be inserted into bottom section 12 and then the top section 11 may be slid onto the top section of the phone. Similarly, once the top section 11 is removed by sliding away from the bottom section 12, the cell phone can be removed from the bottom portion 12.
While the exemplar case of FIG. 1 is more convenient than a traditional molded casing consisting of a unitary design, the exemplar case remains inconvenient and challenging for the reasons previously set forth above. For instance, the two-piece arrangement with a top section 11 and a bottom section 12 may inadvertently become separated where the resulting single piece becomes an ineffective case; additionally, during a normal impact, once of the portions may separate from the cell phone thereby leaving the cell phone unprotected; and further, the wearability of the two distinct pieces will occur at different rates if the user primarily removes the top portion.
It is therefore desirable to improve on cases and casing systems that are utilized to overcome the challenges set forth above. It is also desirable to provide for an improved unified casing system which may achieve the objectives discussed above and improve over the existing limitations. Therefore, it is advantageous to achieve a solution that overcomes the aforementioned issues.